COMSOL's Multiphysics, V4.3b software now offers five new application-specific modules and expanded modeling and analysis tools.

The five new modules include:

Multibody dynamics — Lets users analyze the assembly of rigid and flexible bodies. Transitional and rotational displacements, as well as locking, can be simulated for a variety of joint types, including prismatic, hinge, cylindrical, screw, planar, ball, slot, and reduced slot joints.

Electrochemistry — Tailored user interfaces for electroanalysis, electrolysis, and electrodialysis, used in applications that include glucose sensors, gas sensors, chlor-alkali electrolysis, desalination of seawater, waste water treatment, and control of electrochemical reactions in biomedical implants.

New features of Multiphysics 4.3b include:

• Geometry and mesh lets users make quick what-if studies by taking a 2D geometry from the cross section of a 3D geometry. A new curvilinear coordinate-system tool defines anisotropic materials in curved geometric shapes.

• Interfacing and productivity – This One Window Interface with LiveLink for Inventor lets users work with Multiphysics from within the Inventor environment. New updates in LiveLink for Excel allow the import of multiple models and export of material data.

• Electrical – A magnetics solver facilitates faster stationary and time-dependent magnetics simulations. A new electrical contact feature has been added to the AC/DC Module.

• Mechanical – Bolt pretension and beam cross-section analysis can now be simulated in the Structural Mechanics Module.

• Fluid – A frozen rotor feature in the CFD Module efficiently solves for the pseudo-steady flow field in rotating machinery for laminar and turbulent flow. A new thin screen feature for thin permeable barriers allows the simulation of wire gauzes, grills, and perforated plates.